John Pedley has conceived Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World as a college-level introduction to Greek sanctuaries and their place in ancient Greek society. Particular emphasis is given to the natural and built appearance of sanctuaries, to the works of visual arts populating those spaces, to the visual experiences of visitors, to the ritual activities, and to the transformations of sanctuaries over time, from their origins up to the present. After outlining the main themes of the book, Pedley sketches a general introduction to the nature and development of sanctuaries from the Geometric period to the beginning of the Hellenistic period (ca. 800–323 BCE). Chapter 2 (“Setting the Stage”) contains a basic overview of the Greek pantheon and of the chronological and geographical frame of the sanctuaries discussed in the book, a review of the nature of the available evidence concerning sanctuaries, and, finally, a presentation of the two basic elements of social organization in Ancient Greece: the family and the polis. Chapter 3 (“Growth and Variety”) considers the development of monumental sanctuaries of Olympian gods during the Archaic and Classical periods, and discusses sanctuaries of heroes and smaller sanctuaries. Chapter 4 (“The Siting of Sanctuaries”) follows...